National Award for Innovative Practices 2018-19 Inviting Proposals

National Awards for Innovative Practices and Experiments in Education for Schools and Teacher Education Institutions

Introduction

In the early sixties, the then Department of Extension Programme for Secondary Education launched a Scheme entitled “Seminar Readings Programme for Teachers and Heads of Secondary Schools.” The scheme provided an opportunity to teachers to write detailed papers in English or in any other modern Indian language on teaching procedures or techniques, which they found most effective. The papers were submitted to the Extension Service Department of the NCERT. From time to time, changes were made in the Scheme and its scope was widened with regard to its nomenclature, nature of participation, eligibility criteria, specification of themes, procedure of submission of papers, short listing of papers, number of awards, eligibility for cash prize, amount of cash prize etc.
Till 2004-05, the Scheme was known as “All India Competition on Innovative Practices and Experiments for School Teachers and Teacher Educators”. There was a provision of 100 cash prizes of Rs. 2,000/- each (70 for school teachers: 50 for elementary level and 20 at secondary level, and 30 for teacher educators: 20 for elementary teacher educators and 10 for secondary teacher educators).
The scheme was reviewed by the NCERT during 2005-07 with the help of faculty members of RIEs and some external experts in the area of school education and teacher education. The review led to the reformulation of the Scheme as „All India Competition on Innovative Practices and Experiments in Education for Schools and Teacher Education Institutions.‟
After the implementation of the Scheme for about ten years, it has been felt that individual teachers and teacher educators attempting innovations need to be accorded recognition by giving them awards at the national level. Therefore, the scheme has been rechristened as ‘National Awards for Innovative Practices and Experiments in Education for Schools and Teacher Education Institutions’ from 2017-18 onwards

Objectives of The Scheme:

The main objectives of the scheme are to:

sensitise teachers and teacher educators about the potential of innovative practices and experiments for improvement of teaching-learning;

encourage teachers and teacher educators to try out innovative ideas and practices for improvement of different areas of school education and teacher education

encourage teachers and teacher educators to identify problems they face in their teaching learning process and adopt a realistic approach to find their solutions;

create an environment in schools and teacher education institutions to ensure sustainability of innovation; and

provide a forum to teachers and teacher educators to share their innovative ideas with all the stakeholders.

What is Innovation?

Innovation is typically understood as the introduction of something new and useful, for example, introducing new strategies or modified methods, techniques, practices, products and services. The definitions of innovation include:

Process of making improvements by introducing something new;

Process of implementing new ideas for improvement of teaching learning process;

An idea, strategy, method or device;

Changes that create a new dimension of performance in any aspect of teaching learning; and

A creative idea that is realized through the use of alternative strategies or techniques.

Capabilities of realising a desired change continuously in order to sustain it over a period of time.

Scope:

Teachers and teacher educators can undertake innovations or conduct experiments on any aspect of their work related to teaching-learning, training or management of schools/colleges of teacher education in order to enhance efficiency of the institution to overcome problems and difficulties they face in day to day functioning. A few suggested examples are given below:

Devise a new approach/instructional strategy in any subject area;

Prepare and use innovative teaching-learning materials including ICT;

Identification and mobilization /use of resources drawn from the local community/ environment for improvement of teaching-learning;

Develop local specific curricular materials for teaching-learning;

Develop innovative strategies for classroom management leading to an improvement in the organizational climate or better use of available resources in the class or school;